40 days and 40 nights — Day 40 + 14

6:45pm Sundown in 19 minutes, the start of the Sabbath. Two weeks since I ended my fast. Two weeks of exploring new terrain. I have been going very slowly with respect to figuring out how to eat. Mostly, I’ve kept a pot of kitchari handy. The only non-plant based food I’ve eaten is eggs, and not very many of them.

Three things stand out for me.
Number 1. I have missed writing this blog — missed reflecting on the days as they passed. Through this blog, a web of support formed around me — something that made the whole endeavor possible, something I would wish we all could have all the time. Yesterday a dear friend and teacher who had been following the blog, wrote me to say she missed it and suggested I write an entry to catch folks up. She presumed that if she missed it, others might too; others might want to know what has been happening for me in these two weeks. I’d been missing it too but felt that I couldn’t yet deliver the postscript I’d promised on Day 40. I’d imagined it would be a deeply thought out essay where I would have thoroughly analyzed everything that had happened along the way and I would be able to say, unequivocally, the ways in which I was transformed by the experience. That notion, conceived within the safety and spaciousness of the fast, was swallowed up by a maelstrom of busyness that descended as soon as I stepped outside of its comfortable confines. Which leads me to…

Number 2. The 40 day fast which I had envisioned for myself was like nothing I’d ever experienced before. It was a framework which determined everything else about my life: where I went, who I engaged with, how I spent my time and money, what I thought about. I was living a daily spiritual practice and reaping its rewards in the form of love, companionship, tangible support, deepened intuitive abilities, greatly improved self-esteem. I slept better, smiled more, knew what needed to happen next. I became proficient in the kitchen in ways I’d never been nor ever cared to be. I was interested in the qualities of the foods that went into the kitchari. I blessed each bowl I ate, I gave away as much of each pot as I myself consumed. People felt immediately nourished by it, as did I. When the 40 days ended I was shocked at how all that changed. Not once in 40 days did I burn the bottom of the pot. Not even one time — and that’s saying something. Once the 40 days were over, all of a sudden I kept forgetting I was cooking until I smelled it catching! Or I’d forget some key ingredient, which I hadn’t done before. Even though I’d said I’d go another ten days, it just didn’t carry the same fire, the same juice, the same sanctity that the 4o days did. AND, I began to feel depleted. The fear that I was becoming deficient in some key nutrient returned. I knew that down this road is the path to the dreaded American Diet which has been so wrong for me. What I have been grappling with is how to hang on to a key learning that has come from these 40 days. The Learning: I have reached a stage in my life where I am the expert when it comes to what I need to sustain me. The key is to listen with great care; to call on Spirit and then listen as the answers form inside me. This is a radical act, entirely counter culture. How do I stand firm in this truth without the safety net of the fast? What is it about the 40 days that allowed me to be the person I want to be all the time. How can I re-create that outside the fast? And last, but hardly least…

Number 3. It’s as if I’ve shed the fat suit I was shlepping around for the last many years. In 40 days, I dropped nearly 25 pounds. To be sure, I’m no slip of a thing, but I feel so much better, so much more like myself. This is pure bonus, though it’s certainly welcome and it’s a very visible effect of the fast. Any nutritionist would wag a finger at how quickly I’ve lost this weight. But, I felt better than I had in a very long time all the way through. The depletion came after the 40 days ended and I was in a quandary about what and how to eat. I let myself get dehydrated, I didn’t eat enough, I fasted on Yom Kippur, was an officiant at not one but TWO fire rituals in this period. In fact, yesterday was the first day I started feeling better. I’ve been taking care to hydrate more, and I’ve been feeling more confidant around food. I’m not so worried any more that I will suddenly, accidentally, eat a bag of chips.

I am still captivated by what I’ve learned about my sacred activism and how it’s through the care and feeding of this body that I’m coming to know the truth of what started me on this practice in the first place: when I was preparing to do a Ceremony to Heal the Waters of the Gulf of Mexico, I began to think about how I have treated my body with the same disregard as humanity treats the EarthSeaMother. This awareness grew into a commitment to pay more than just lip service to my commitment to Tikkun Olam. I think of Bernice Johnson Reagon, in an interview with Bill Moyers explaining the beauty and power of Black Gospel music in how personal it is. She uses as an example: “This little light of mine I’m gonna let it shine….”
I take a stand for the healing of the planet through the healing of my body.
YES! Let it begin with me!